CNET’s Roadshow had the opportunity to interview General Motors CEO Mary Barra at the 2017 NAIAS.

Mary Barra Excited To Discuss Bolt

Video description:

“The boss of GM gives us the scoop on the Chevy Bolt and the future of EVs in the company’s portfolio.”

Just prior to the 1-minute mark (the discussion after the Volt & Bolt mention turns to the Camaro, trucks and other non plug-ins), Barra discusses how the gen 1 Chevy Volt evolved into the gen 2 Volt and was followed up by the Chevrolet Bolt.

Barra goes on the say that:

“…the Bolt is our platform that we’re going to continue on and have a huge range of vehicles.”

She notes that general Motors hasn’t announced any of these vehicles yet, but they’re coming and we’re intrigued.

A small electric SUV perhaps?

Update (Jan 13th): Later in the show CNET also caught up to Mark Reuss, General Motors’ product boss and re-confirmed Barra’s earlier statements on product expansion (see video below). Reuss mentioned when asked if an all-electric Cruze was in GM’s future, that more offerings were en route.

“The platform that we got here (Bolt EV) is really the platform of the future for us…this is a great platform for us, it really is our future”

I’ll take Volt-sized sedan/hatchback personally. I’d like to see it in a Malibu sized sedan & Equinox size SUV for the mainstream consumer. Maybe an 70kWh to 80kWh version for a Chevy Traverse plug-in.

Barra’s Words & way of thinking & Her entire demineur & input about EV’s…in general ….I couldn’t finish watching the interview Barra & the other woman too, Excited about Cadillacs & SUVs & The Lower Gas prices., made me So Sick that I had to Run to the toilet to THROW UP!

I hate to detract from the utopian viewpoint, but every single business is in business to make money. Public companies even moreso, as the company officers have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. Making money is good. Losing money is bad.

Even “not for profit” corporations are certainly not “for loss” either.

If it wasn’t for the People’s Money GM would have been Historectomy Long ago …It’s the Higher Up Executives CEO’s CFO’s Etc: that grab all the money & give themselves Huge Raises & Bonuses when times are Good, ie:like Now..Then When they have a Bad year , they Cry for Help , after They themselves Robbed the Company Bank Prior . The People That Head these Big Corporation have too much Control , Grab $$$ and Run ,They are the Problem..

Then I hope you don’t support any company. Every company has a pollution footprint and pollutes. You may agree with some or disagree with others, but that’s a fact.

From your groceries, to your energy in your home… Even if renewable, that comes from a manufacturing footprint that pollutes.

It’s easy to get all pompous and look down on a company like GM, but the reality is they’re one of the more progressive companies switching to electrified transportation. It is absolutely foolish to expect a company to talk badly about their own products just because they’re not electric; products that, by the way, sell very well and are obviously in demand by consumers.

And yet GM has failed to electrify the best selling market sectors of vehicles in the US; midsize sedans, and AWD CUV’s/SUV’s.

So how exactly does that work, that everything is just the fault of the free market, and GM and all the other ICE car makers are just poor pawns of the free market?

Do ICE car companies bear any responsibility for the cars they choose to electrify and build? While they simultaneously lobby against regulations that would hold them accountable for building vehicles that pollute?

How are buyers supposed to vote with their dollars that they want an AWD CUV EV/PHEV, when ICE companies have been seeming to avoid building them like the plague?

it’s not as though nobody is buying small cars. the chevrolet Cruze sells 10 times the volume of the chevrolet Volt. why do you think the pattern would be any different if GM went to larger cars?

it’s easy for you to bemoan auto companies for not producing the cars that you personally want. but launching an automobile is an expensive proposition, and they need to cater to more than just your personal tastes.

That’s funny, I didn’t mention what I personally want. I specifically mentioned the best selling market sectors.

Small cars sales are down 10% last year, with the Chevrolet Cruze and Ford Focus losing a combined 71,000 sales over 2015.

Meanwhile, the midsize Malibu volume rose 17% in 2016, and the four best-selling SUVs/crossovers in America all reported record sales, with overall SUV/CUV sales up 8%.

I’m not talking about my tastes. I’m talking about what the market is saying.

I ask again, how is just an issue of them selling products that customers want to buy, when no ICE car makers have put out BEV’s that fit these market trends? They specifically are NOT selling cars in the market sectors that customers want to buy the most.

you ignored by comment: when GM put a PHEV in the small car segment, it sold in substantially lower volume than a comparable ICE small car. there is no evidence that the trend would be any different in a larger car segment.

furthermore, i am sure that GM did market research that you haven’t done. if there is no evidence that the general public considers electrification to be an important attribute in a car, then there is no evidence that people will ditch ICEVs for *EVs.

the ramblings of the EV enthusiasts on this forum are an inadequate basis upon which an auto maker can make an economic decision on whether to introduce a car model.

I ignored you trying to switch the topic, and you repeatedly being unable to support your original comment.

Since you’ve clearly ceded that due to your repeated lack of response, let me also decimate your attempt to change the topic away from your original comment.

There is massive supporting evidence that sales in larger EV’s would be better. All of which an insideev’s regular like yourself would have to be intentionally blind to not know about already.

1) Massive success of the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV in Europe.

2) Massive success of the BYD Tang in China.

3) Profit margin in CUV’s/SUV’s is much larger than small cars, giving car makers much more room to still sell at a profit.

4) Tesla has taken a much larger percent of market share in the large luxury car market than any other EV maker has taken out of the small car market. Tesla’s strategy of starting at the top has been more successful as a percent of market share than any any other EV in their markets.

5) Replacing a midsize ICE car or SUV/CUV saves more money per year than replacing a small car. That gives the advantage to midsize and CUV/SUV’s when calculating numbers like the 5 Year Cost to Own vs. comparing a small EV to a Prius.

6) The EV market is massively over-saturated in smaller sub-100 mile range EV’s. Nearly every car maker has one, often their only EV. They are competing in very similar car classes against each other. Car makers who break out of that over-saturation have breakout potential.

———————

If you can’t see the sales potential in actually meeting consumer needs in the fastest growing parts of car market, you are willfully blind to the realities of the US car market.

when you look at the demographic of tesla buyers, they are at the high end. when it comes to market share, an honest accounting would recognize that the model S occupies a price range that includes mercedes benz e-class *and* mercedes benz s-class. so, while tesla has done quite well, they are still pretty small potatoes, and when you include mercedes benz e-class (bmw 5-series, and comparable cars), the market share numbers are quite a bit smaller.

when it comes to that demographic, maybe you have forgotten that GM *did* put a PHEV in that product space, it was called the cadillac ELR. it sold in numbers significantly less than have the tesla model S.

a larger PHEV runs into all kinds of problems: you’re still got to make room for the gas tank, but you now need room for a bigger battery. so something has got to give: you either go for a smaller battery, which means so little range that people might think: “why bother”; or you go for a bigger battery, which means that there is less room for something else. so people are going to look at the ICEV version, and they are going to look at the PHEV version, which would cost more and have, say, less trunk room, than the ICEV version and they are going to ask themselves: why would they want to buy the PHEV? in order for the PHEV to be the “big seller” that you think it would be, people would have to consider electrification to be an important attribute in an automobile.

you see, everything looks so simple to you because you have no money on the line. you don’t even have any market research data. all you’ve got it talk, and we all know how much that is worth…

No comment — No, the BMW 7 Series, 5-Series, and the A8 and A6 and the S and E’s have NEVER been considered to all compete in the same market sector.

But this is how sad your argument is. Even if you ignore decades of clearly recognized market sectors and put them all together as if they were one single market sector, Tesla STILL holds a massively larger market share of this fictional made up market sector than any other EV maker holds in the small car sector.

Even when you fabricate a magical market sector by combining multiple well established market sectors, you are still wrong.

i’ve never seen any data indicating that hybrid sales have ever been all that impressive compared to the ICEV equivalent. with the price of gasoline being low, it might be a bit of a challenge to get people to pay thousands of dollars more for the hybrid version of the malibu.

They used to. They used to make the same stupid claims that Amazon.com was “losing” money, just as they’re now saying about Tesla. And they didn’t stop until Amazon.com decided it had grown to a sufficiently large size — it’s now the worlds #1 retailer — after which Amazon tapered off its growth, and started regularly showing a net profit.

I find it truly astounding how so many people who clearly understand the technical details of finances better than I do, are so blind to the obvious: That investing money in future growth is not losing money!

You’re both talking past each other, you both have made some valid points, but frankly neither of you is acknowledging the points the other is making.

Let’s step back and look at the reality of the financial situation here. The reality is that for less expensive cars — and that includes the vast majority of small cars such as the Cruz — EVs are still too expensive to compete. So, “no comment”, talking about the fact that a small care like the Volt isn’t selling in numbers comparable to the Cruz, really misses the point.

It’s been said by many that in general, gasmobile makers are only offering PEVs in market segments where they don’t have even a single gasmobile which sells in good numbers. For example, it’s been said that the Volt and the Bolt are both aimed at market segments which won’t compete with any of GM’s better selling cars. So I presume that’s sufficiently true to be considered a valid general rule, even if there is at least one exception: The Mitsubishi Outlander.

Now, Nix, we must concede that legacy auto makers don’t make as good a profit margin off PEVs as they do gasmobiles. So they do have a very real and unbiased motive to not offer PEVs which directly compete with their more popular gasmobiles.

On the other hand, “no comment”, you’re pretty thoroughly ignoring the reality of what Nix is saying, by belittling the market share Tesla has. Yes, Tesla is still a relatively small auto maker. But that in no way erases the fact that Tesla is doing remarkably well in the upscale market in which it has chosen to compete, out-competing more established auto makers such as BMW and Mercedes, at least in the North American market.

Nix is entirely right on this point: Auto makers would sell more PEVs if they made them larger. “No comment”, your dismissal of Nix’s point about the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV selling very well is a pretty strong indication you’re not interested in honest debate here.

Also, “no comment”, your point about the Cadillac ELR not selling, is wholly invalid. Any car which is as greatly overpriced as compared to its perceived value as the ELR was initially, is going to fail to sell. That’s why the Volt didn’t sell in Europe; the European version, the Ampera, was priced about twice what the Volt was.

And speaking of the Volt, “no comment”, there have been a great number of comments posted here from people who say they would seriously consider buying a Volt if the back seat was big enough for 3 adults. Admittedly anecdotal evidence is rarely to be depended on, but this opinion has been expressed so frequently that I presume there is substantial public opinion behind it. So it is astonishing that GM failed to make the Volt 2.0’s rear seat significantly bigger, especially when you consider the general trend, in most models of cars, is (or at least until very recently was) to keep making each new model year larger than the last. That GM refused to make the Volt 2.0 a true five-seater seems to me fairly strong evidence that they don’t really want to sell the car in large numbers.

The reality is that legacy auto makers have a strong disincentive to make and sell compelling PEVs in large numbers, because that would cut into sales of their own best-selling, and most profitable, gasmobiles. We can argue about who is or is not to blame about that being the situation, and how much or how little responsibility legacy auto makers have for refusing to make compelling and/or larger PEVs which have a better chance of selling well.

But let us please at least acknowledge the financial reality that, in general, selling gasmobiles is more profitable than selling PEVs. That won’t be the case forever, but it is at present.

I’m sure I have some kind of accent but I don’t have the stronger, Detroit-style one Mary has. It’s a variation of the Chicago accent. You can really hear it in the “a’s”. For example, many from Detroit say “baygs” when pronouncing bags (bahgs)

Bring on an Equinox plug-in EV. I’m taking my wife for a test ride in a Volt tommorrow at 1pm, cause the Bolt isn’t coming to Winnipeg anytime soon (no incentives in a 95+o/o hydro power Province with low air polution A GM Dealer Executive told me Bolts are only going to BC, Ontario & Quebec Dealerships this year, because they have incentives. What a ridiculous missed opportunity for our Province of Manitoba Canada.

I guess ‘tosho’ is implying that the car industry has improved the efficiency of their combustion engine products in the past mainly by lobbying poiticians into weaker environmental requirements and by using every yet so little loop hole in regulations so that the mpg-numbers strangely go up on specification sheets but not on everyones gas bills.

They’re implying nothing. It’s a simple statement of fact. Even Dan Sperling, a Board Member of CARB and a huge ZEV advocate, has stated that the industry can meet CAFE standards without a total shift to electrification. The existence of a 2L 4-cylinder Camaro that is lighter and accelerates faster than the Glorious Z28s of yore with over 28mpg at modern highway speeds and >90% reduction in HC, CO and NOx is real. The modern ICE is quite satisfactory to GMs customers, but nonetheless the company is pushing ahead with a considerable electrification effort.

At the same time they’re achieving record profits, a nice share buyback program, superior dividend and very large CapEx and R&D.

Barra has kicked butt as a CEO. GM no longer depends on a huge low-margin fleet sale program and their non-US operations are going gangbusters.

Perhaps I should parrot the tone of the recent election: are you a misogynist?

If you only knew more about electric vehicles. Put your butt into a real plug in EV & do more than drive around the block please. No air & virtually no noise polution and the cost of operation for some of them could provide 20 years of driving for $0 investment in both purchase price and operation cost. We’d one the math and this is a very conservative calculation. Thanks for listening. Your test ride will shock you

The next gen engines that Toyota introduced a couple of week’s ago are 40% efficient for the regular ICE and 41% efficient for the Atkinson-cycle ICE for hybrids. Toyota claims these next gen engines will be 10% more powerful and 20% more fuel efficient than the ones they will be replacing.

The 2018 Toyota Camry introduced this week at the Detroit auto show will have one of these next gen engines, so we can compare the fuel efficiency improvement when Toyota posts EPA mileage figure. Toyota did say that the 2018 Camry Hybrid will have class leading MPG figures. The current class leader is the Honda Accord, which gets 48 mpg Combined, 49 mpg City, and 47 mpg Highway. If priced right, a 50+ mpg Camry might indeed compete with BEVs and PHEVs for buyers who aren’t already EV enthusiasts. These regular Joe’s might feel that a 50+ mpg Camry is good enough, especially when looking at the annual fueling cost on fueleconomy.gov, and choose the Camry Hybrid over a BEV/PHEV. The same might hold true for a slightly less expensive high MPG regular ICE Camry.

“The next gen engines that Toyota introduced a couple of week’s ago are 40% efficient for the regular ICE and 41% efficient for the Atkinson-cycle ICE for hybrids.”

And almost certainly, just like all claims for reducing the horrible inefficiency of the ICEngine, those percentages refer only to bench tests with the engine running at its most efficient speed, which gasmobiles almost never do in real-world driving. In practice, the speed at which gasmobile engines spend most of their time running give them an efficiency much, much less than that of their most efficient running speed. Something less than half the claimed efficiency, as I recall.

As a reminder, EVs are typically at least 3.5 times as energy efficient as a car of similar size, and I think the new generation of PEVs (Plug-in EVs) are averaging even better.

No to put to fine a point on it, but GDI is real, an is here now, from multiple manufactures – its WAY past the “on the bench phase” – It’s generally acknowledged to get about a 15% mileage gain in cars, and that’s fairly consistent across manufacturers – See:

The issue, and why this has been done before is particulate emissions – which are about 1K WORSE than an normal ICE – Whcih makes GDI very similar to a Diesel in terms of particulate emissions – So currently, you pretty much have to add particulate emissions after-treatment via an exhaust filter, versus a standard CC – (hence the Corning note above), it’s also more complex with a much higher PSI fuel pump (typically like 2K PSI versus 50 PSI for an ICE) –

So yea, GDI is real, and it’s definitely going to be big – It does add costs, and gets most ICE’s a 15% mileage gain – Still not the same as a EV, but 15% across the industry is rather significant

Pushi to your credit you are not saying anything that anyone else with you point of view is saying. But it really is apples and oranges.

The starting point of the efficiency is different between battery power and the Prius prime with a tankfull of gasoline is much different –

Using your numbers from other posts you have made (except you used kwh and I’m using british thermal units), it only takes 15,000 btu of processing to get 125,000 btu of energy storage. Even if you include the crappy ethanol-laden stuff, its still 90% efficient from crude oil to gasoline in the tank.

It takes an Incredible amount of processing to get energy into an electric car.

The way I do it is the most straightforward, direct way, but the sunshine on my roof is only converted into electricity at about a 14% efficiency, on a good day.

Then the battery charge efficiency in moderate weather is only around 75%. In cold or hot weather things get much worse, while gasoline in the tank stays the same – even the vapors are captured and utilized the next time the engine runs.

40% efficiency of the Prius Prime really is fantastic on an absolute scale – and the beauty of the prius or volt is that the engine only is run during its sweet spot.

Yes, the engine has to warm up to become efficient, but everyone does comparisons with things warmed up so that part of the comparison is fair.

Large stationary ‘ice’s’ from several manufacturers in the 2-3000 horsepower range, are over 50% efficient – they are so good (I know this will make some people vomit) they are being used for small CENTRAL STATIONS.

Of course, the actually efficiency just goes up from there, since you can use the waste exhaust heat, and the waste jacket heat for domestic hot water heating, or absorbtion (steam) air conditioning.

Then- the efficiency of the fuel goes to 80 or 90 %.

All the large car-washes in my area get their electricity from ICE’s, since methane is so cheap, and they need the hot water to wash the cars anyway.

The utility has had to DRASTICALLY LOWER the price of commercial service electricity since they simply cannot compete otherwise and they didn’t want THOUSANDS of commercial customers disconnecting from them and making their own juice from methane – which, by heat content of a fuel, would have been the most ‘efficient’ to do.

I know this will make everyone mad, but President Jimmy Carter, one month after 3 mile island, stated the US should invest

1). In large SCALE Solar Power
2). In large Scale Coal Power.

Since Carter was an acclaimed Nuclear Engineer, his opinion has some weight, with me at least.

Improvements are still being made. As an EV advocate, it’s painful to admit but the ICE improvements are still less expensive than adding battery technology to these cars…and it’s all about margin. Automotive is extremely competitive and margins are tight. GM stock has been stuck in the low $30s despite strong quarterly results for many many quarters. Capital investment has already been made in engine manufacturing plants, so for the next decade those resources will have to be squeezed to get the best ROI. I hope to see a transition of investment away from ICE technology but it will take many years for the product mix to completely switch over.

You would have to be crazy to not expect GM to build other vehicles off the Bolt platform. Given the positive reviews it sounds like the got the platform right. The only criticism has been the seats and some of the interior materials. Those things are easily fixable in a Buick Electra sedan. Just add a few inches to the wheelbase, knock off an inch in headroom and increase the overhangs and you have a nice roomy sedan. Granted I could also see them making a AWD Trax EV as well. That would probably be easier for them to do. The Bolt is already really close in size, but with a longer wheelbase.

“The only criticism has been the seats and some of the interior materials”.

I hope that very soon some savings can be made on battery cost as to provide better seats and interior materials. EV buyers are often well to do people, at least here in Europe. I foresee some issues when posh Norwegians have a look at the interior of this car. I hope that Opel thought about it for the interior of the AmperaE. For example it must be very easy to dump those seats and provide some up to standards.

This does make me question the role of the VOLT in GM’s future. I can see the Voltec powertrain being put into a wider range of vehicles, but the Volt itself? It really isn’t necessary anymore from a compliance standpoint. And if GM does indeed proliferate the powertrain to other vehicles, the Volt itself would be redundant.

Unless GM turns the Volt into a pure tech halo car, it doesn’t have much reason to make a Gen 3 Volt.

His points is that if the Bolt suffices for compliance, GM has less need to sell the Volts. So given that it’s relative low volume and limited markets now, will they bother with a Gen 3? Or might they just have a PHEV version of something else?

I think there is still a huge market, and potential market for the Volt. We are still in plug-in infancy. When many start transitioning from gassers to plug-ins, they are going to want a PHEV vs. a BEV. Also, the Volt is profitable, so it makes sense for Chevy to sell more of them.

That’s right. The Spark EV is merely a compliance car. The Bolt isn’t, and neither is the Volt.

GM isn’t exactly jumping into the EV revolution with both feet, but it seems pretty clear they want to develop the technology sufficiently far to be able to move in that direction once the market starts significantly shifting. GM doesn’t want to be caught like Eastman Kodak was in the digital camera revolution, letting other companies take the lead and ignoring that so long that when they finally tried to catch up, it was too late.

I think it should be pretty clear that GM has a long term commitment to the Volt. Look at how quickly the went back to the drawing board and completely redesigned Gen I, even though sales of Gen I didn’t really support much reinvestment. The Volt is GM’s Prius and I think GM is taking the long view on this one.

I don’t consider the ELR a “failure” because they made/sold exactly what they had planned too. It was always intended to be a short-run, low-production vehicle. There’s a lot of these types of vehicles in the world.

You are right. However a sexy senior citizen (70yrs young), who watches CNN & American Hero Channel, will test drive the first Bolt that arrives into Manitoba Canada, just as I’ll do with the first Tesla 3 that lands here, whomever owns it.

If the people who wanted to test drive at auto show was any indication, there’s practically zero interest in Camaro and others, and almost 100% interest in Bolt. Even the new traverse display did not entice as many viewers as Bolt display.

Not Divorced, Good!, Then it must Diet or a Little Nip & Tuck 0r perhaps Both, along with the success of this “Carbon Compliance Bolt” That will give them the GREEN Light to build More GAS GUZZLERS which is their TRUE 0bvious Agenda.

“You mean what parts LG may build that GM engineered and designed for LG to build? Seriously, troll be trollin’ ”

It gets a bit tiresome reading comments from people who claim that GM designed either 100% of the Bolt’s powertrain, or none of it, based on whether they’re a GM fanboy or not.

As usual in the real world, the truth lies somewhere in between. According to the article linked below, LG Electronics designed the battery pack, and GM apparently designed everything else in the powertrain, including the interface between the battery pack and the motor… by which I guess the article means the power electronics including the inverter.

See: “Bolt EV Powertrain: How Did GM And LG Collaborate On Design, Production?”

You REALLY need to stop embarrassing yourself with those LG comments. You obviously have no idea what goes into the development of a propulsion system or vehicle electronics or how it is integrated with the rest of the vehicle. Yes, in the case of the Bolt, LG was given design responsibility, but GM still does all the testing to verify the design. In all other cases, GM DESIGNS and tests the entire propulsion system right down to the power electronics. The do this in Pontiac MI at their Global Propulsion Systems HQ. I’ve seen the power electronics labs, dyno cells, environmental chambers, etc. The fact that LG did it for the Bolt, doesn’t mean GM can’t do it. I suspect it was purely a decision based on cost. GM designed the Gen I/II Volt motors and power electronics, which have proven very reliable.

An All Wheel Drive EV SPORTY Car…& how about Some “Fast Chargers” @ The GM Stealerships., If they are Truly Serious about “ELECTRIC CARS” …I have a STRONG feeling GM is only Complying to fulfill their Main AGENDA!..

Boy, you guys are rough on GM. They took a bigger step into electrification than just about anyone beyond Tesla with the gen 1 Volt, and despite only modest sales, went ahead with a gen 2 Volt.. Indeed, now the gen 2 Volt sales are also modest, and yet they proceed with the first semi-affordable 200+ mile EV AND state they will launch future products based on that platform.

It’s easy to blame manufacturers, but my experience is the general public is just not that into EVs. My friends and family know I had a Volt for 3 years and now drive a Tesla…most are still entirely uninterested in any kind of plug-in for their next car. Right now there is stilla chicken/egg problem with EVs and demand (i.e. build it and they will come or wait until they ask and then build it). Right now GM is going farther, IMO, than any other full line auto maker in trying to walk the line between the overwhelmingly more popular (and, um, oh yeah, profitable) ICE vehicles and the inevitable future of EVs.

You are making valid points and I have to agree.
Just test drove a Prius Prime yesterday that I finally found (here in Alabama !) and the dealer had to admit that the car is just sitting there. He is actually looking into trading the car with another dealer in a more EV friendly state for an ICE vehicle. So sad…

Stealerships.. Take the path of LEAST RESISTANCE. They BAIT & SWITCH they Push ICE vehicles “Their Bread & Butter”. HENCE The Main Reason Tesla Wants to sell Their Own Cars…Dealers always Steer Customers away from EV’s and/0r Discourage EV’s that is a Fact!

Went to a local toyota dealership and asked to see a prime but was told they couldn’y keep one on the lot as it sold as they came in, plenty of regular priuses. Seems like they will sell well here in California at least

AlphaEdge, I certainly do give you points for your strong refutation and sharp takedown of Mark B. Spiegel’s anti-Tesla posts just the other day.

On the other hand, your attitude that we Tesla fanboys are “paranoid” for thinking there’s a conspiracy of short-sellers posting anti-Tesla posts… well, that shows a fairly amusing naivety on your part. Just go over to Seeking Alpha sometime, and read a few of the Tesla related blog posts… and the dozens or hundreds of comments that follow. It won’t take long until you start seeing a very similar pattern to many of them; a pattern which is repeated in all too many of the posts here on InsideEVs. You’ll also see a few screen names which unfortunately are also familiar to InsideEVs readers; names such as tftf, Dr. ValueSeeker… and of course, Mark B. Spiegel (aka “Logical Thought”).

“…most are still entirely uninterested in any kind of plug-in for their next car.”
Maybe they don’t “get” them; or are sceptical or even worse, afraid of them plugins .. taking into account what the media chose to put out back in the early Tesla S days, I’m not surprised.

Yes, I don’t understand why some here don’t realize that car makers make the cars that people ask to buy. So if only 1% of the market is asking for plug-ins, it’s actually surprising as many are made as there are. Automakers can’t tell people to buy plug-ins. But if upset people want more plug-ins to be sold, then spread the word to the consumers. If sales continue to increase, automakers will continue supply them and expand. We are at the point now where there are several options/flavors, that are reasonable in cost. Do we need more? Yes. But I think automakers like GM, with 5 electric cars under their belt, including a Gen2 version, are doing their part more-so than other automakers.

Oversized Giant corporations are PUBLIC ENEMY #1 Then comes Government, 0r is it the other way around?/ lol…They Compromise Our Safety & well Being for $$$ Money $$$..remember How many people Burned to Death in the Chevy Cruise …so that GM could Save 50 Cents per Ignition switch???? How easy we forget..

Businessess are bussineses that exist to make money…
While goverments alegedly exist to protect their citizens but are often as corupt or incompent ascompanies…
Every legacy auto company is guilty in one way or another…
Hyundai, Kia, Ford, Mitisubushi all guilty of cheating fuel economy rules here and or abroad…
Ford firestone tire fiasco…
Toyota unintended acceleration…
GM ignition switchs…
VW diesel emissions…
These are just the recent public ones that I remember off hand…
But the reality is the companies change souls per say when they change CEOs…
Take GM where one CEO builds the EV1 and the next CEO crushes it…
We forget? Or we just chose who to do business with today?

And ar the end of the day GM does produce the cars people want…
The vast majority of people who beleive in global warming have no problem run out and buy big fat bloated SUVs and trucks with ICE simply to go to the grocery store so how can I blame a company for selling to them within goverment fameworks…
And Obamas great fuel economy rules are lame enough and full,of enough holes that fuel economy for new vehicles has been stagnet now for three years on a row…

So true that GM is trying to make EV. Bolt is a decent product, though expensive. I don’t see any comparable product from other gas car makers, not even Nissan.

Anyone looked at upcoming Kia Stinger? 0-60 in about 5 seconds, available in AWD, and starting price of $30K. It doesn’t look bad, either. I think that will be the real competition to Tesla 3. No other car today comes close to Tesla 3 like Stinger. With that performance, looks, price, Bolt seems too plain to be $30K.

Yes I know. I don’t distinguish EV vs gasser when comparing. SparkEV is best car for the money, EV or not. Same is true with Tesla 3. Most people shopping for cars will put EV as secondary or even lesser consideration.

One thing going for Tesla, even if it ends up being bit slower than Stinger, is Tesla badge. That is worth quite a bit, probably more than BMW, Mercedes, or even more than Ferrari and Maybach for some. Same can’t be said about Chevy and Kia.

That’s why I wish GM would spin off EV division, maybe call it “LaSalle”. The founder of LaSalle was Alfred P. Sloan (maybe you’ve seen his foundation funding PBS programs), and electrical engineer, just like Mary. It’s kind of fitting for EV division being premium over Chevy, but not quite luxury of Cadillac.

“Gee our old LaSalle ran great, those were the days…” And those days are back with new EV division LaSalle!

Personally, I wouldn’t get it, but if average consumer has $30K to $40K to spend on a car and there’s no Tesla 3, Stinger is serious competition even for Bolt. HP is one thing, but AWD option is sweet.

that’s too bad. BEV’s need to move beyond the range of “compact footprints” While I LOVE and drive a Volt currently and will likely go BEV with next purchase I need more space!! Cramped compact appliances aren’t going to cut it if manufacturers expect EV’s to gain market share.

as far as future product launches go, the important words in that interview were: “…what the customer wants”. that is true of *every* auto makers that makes an announcement related to electric vehicles (with the exception of tesla). when the announcement of “future products” is made, it is always subject to “market conditions”. those market conditions include the price of gasoline and the state of regulations when it comes to fleet fuel economy and emission standards for automobiles.

this is why discussion of the trump administration is relevant in this forum. don’t expect a trump administration to put the kind of pressure on automakers to introduce zero-emission vehicles as existed in the obama administration. consequently, don’t expect auto makers to go out of their way to introduce zero-emission vehicles. they will continue to invest in research and development toward zero-emission vehicles, but that is for the purpose of being prepared for the contingencies. but, if regulators do not force new introductions of zero emission vehicles, you’re not going to see a lot unless customers (other than EV enthusiasts) demand them. that hasn’t happened so far.

but barra did honestly note that the Bolt is a technology test bed vehicle.

to me, the “subscription service” sounds like little more than an auto manufacturer getting into the car rental business, although at $1,500 per month they are going after a very small niche. this seems like more of a marketing test bed concept for ride sharing.

to be realistic about it, i also noticed the difference in barra’s appearance. you generally tend to notice it when people look different because the first thought that goes through you mind is to wonder: why?

It might have read very differently without ‘Sad.’ at the end. Thank you for clarifying. I agree with you, GM is lucky to have a strong, forward thinking CEO like Mary Barra at the helm. 🙂

The internet has ruined the word ‘sad’ to the point where it no longer means ‘sad’ unless given proper context. While he didn’t begin the downward trend of the word ‘sad’, Donald Trump put the final nail in that coffin.

And buying a TESLA allows any other manufacturer to sell more gas guzzlers, since they can buy ZEV credits from Tesla for “pennies on the dollar”….much cheaper than developing an in-house ZEV platform.

“GM and others are members of The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers that are lobbying hard with their attorneys to push back against EPA and CARB…

“Buying a Volt or a Bolt directly funds/supports those efforts.”

If you want to boycott GM and other auto makers which are actively engaged in pushing back against CARB standards and other emission standards, then I certainly respect your decision and your right to do so.

But I think we also need to respect the opinions and rights of those who see it differently. Refusing to buy EVs from legacy auto makers merely reinforces their view that customers don’t want them. If we want them to make EVs, then someone has to demonstrate there is demand for them by buying them.

It’s not like GM and other companies are run by Snidely Whiplash, a cartoon villain who does evil simply because he likes to. GM is a business, and like all businesses (with rare and unusual exceptions) it’s run to make money. We need to recognize the reality that at present, auto makers make more money selling gasmobiles than they do EVs.

The EV revolution will succeed in making gasmobiles obsolete only when the price of EVs is less than comparable gasmobiles. And that will happen only as more and more EVs are developed and made, and as ways are found to bring down costs.

So long as people refuse to buy EVs — regardless of the reason, even if that reason is a boycott over the anti-EV political activism of GM and other companies — then that merely delays the day when the EV revolution will triumph.

There’s a cliche which I think very appropriate here: “Cutting off your nose to spite your face”. And that’s how I see refusing to buy a Bolt merely because we don’t like GM’s political stance against ZEV and CARB mandates.

As a new Bolt owner and a Mary Barra fan I view her statements are purely practical based on what the market trends are. I am very interested, in particular, to see a Chevy Bolt / Volt mainstream ad campaign. I want Chevy to start promoting their amazing EV achievements to get more people to try them out. They are fantastic achievements.

The bias against women seems to be in full force here. No one makes comments when chubby cheeked Musk looks like a chipmunk. But boy, let a woman start looking … whatever … and the comments start flying.

FWIW my first reaction when the video started was that the lighting was terrible. Broad face works for men but it’s usually terrible for women, and this wasn’t the exceptional case. If you watch the end of the video she starts looking much better because the light angle and the angle of her face has changed.

I love the idea of the subscription service. I’d just like it to be available for Bolt EV owners. For X dollars a month you could drive electrically and, if necessary, you could call up another vehicle for a long trip. That would eliminate the need for a second car, and would enable two car families to go with two BEVs.

I just wonder how long LG is going to accept his technology being packed in a GM box instead of having it in one of his own. GM is just a retailer for LG that can be replaced by another one or a direct sale of their own. If Tesla can sell its cars without dealers so can LG. GM is a fake ev car company.

Your are correct in that GM leveraged LG’s battery production savvy, but to be clear LG used GM’s own Li Ion recipe (it’s GM’s IP). In addition, GM designed the electric traction motor and the battery-control system, was responsible for all integration of the powertrain into the vehicle itself, and validated all systems.

When people (men I’m ashame to admit since I identify as one) will learn to refrain from commenting on women appearances when they don’t appear on screen as a beauty contest ? Guys NEVER have to endure this kind of infantile comments … education? Growing up ? Embarrasing anyway !!

“…the Bolt is our platform that we’re going to continue on and have a huge range of vehicles.”

Seriously, you expect us to believe that a car for which you’ve farmed out the entire powertrain to LG Chem and LG Electronics — and that means LG’s brand new, very inexperienced automotive division will be building drivetrains for the Bolt — is the “platform” upon which you plan to build a “huge range of vehicles”?

what he said was that GM was not going to develop a proprietary charging system. i don’t understand why she would even ask such a question. who, aside from tesla, has even hinted at an interest in a proprietary charging system?

it was a ridiculous question and reuss gave an unnecessarily ridiculous answer. his answer was that GM wasn’t developing a proprietary charging system because the Bolt has enough range so as to not need it.

Maybe I’m giving them too much credit and filling in the blanks with my own knowledge… but that’s just how i heard it lol.

If she really had intended to ask about a proprietary charging station… and he really had intended to say that they don’t need a proprietary charging station because the range is good… then that entire part of the exchange makes zero sense.